This contribution focuses on small-scale innovations for a transition towards a sus-tainable society. These ecosocial innovations – for example food cooperatives, re-use centers or alternative mobility projects – successfully combine all dimensions of sustainability in their social practices. They are innovative in solving ecological challenges on a local level, but also in finding and developing new inclusive forms of training, work, and employment for marginalized groups (cf. Stamm 2021). Eco-social innovations are embedded in social and solidarity economies and therefore meet individual needs, for example of young unemployed migrants or of people with mental impairments, and at the same time strengthen social relationships in their communities. Another important feature of their strategy is to provide education for sustainable development in their communities. All ecosocial innovations share the common vision of an inclusive and sustainable society (Peeters 2016). Based on the Finnish research project ECOSOS we have searched for good exam-ples of ecosocial innovations in four European countries – Finland, Germany, Bel-gium, and Italy (Stamm et al. 2017). The aim was to explore how these organiza-tions, cooperatives or social enterprises implement their new or better solutions for social and ecological problems and how they successfully include marginalized groups in their social practices. The cross-national, multi-case study is based on semi-structured individual interviews as well as group interviews in six ecosocial innovations in the respective countries. The interview partners were founders, co-ordinators, workers and participants involved in the innovations. The thematic anal-ysis based on the interview data led to seven main themes, which illustrate how the innovations work and how inclusion is put into practice in the setting of social and solidarity economies, focused on a transition towards sustainability. The results show for example how open and democratic participation guarantees the inclusion of different groups and how a creative mix of work, engagement and employment supports the aims of the innovations (Matthies et al. 2019; Stamm et al. 2020).

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